


Kicking Puppies

by sojukitty



Category: The Avengers (2012)
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-03-08
Updated: 2012-03-08
Packaged: 2017-11-01 15:50:56
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,106
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/358585
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/sojukitty/pseuds/sojukitty
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>After their confrontation on the Helicarrier, Steve goes to Tony's workshop to to give him a piece of his mind. He was not prepared for Dummy... or how Tony behaves when concerning the robot.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Kicking Puppies

**Author's Note:**

> Dummy is a huge part of my head canon when concerning Steve and Tony's relationship, and he will be making an appearance in most of forgive
> 
> Thanks to soixantesix (I am so sorry, I blame a serious lack of sleep) for beta-ing this fic. All mistakes are mine.

Tony storms into his workshop, picks up the first thing he can get his hands on, which happens to be a wrench, and throws it at the nearest wall as hard as he can.

“Who does that gorilla wrapped in the flag think he is?” His voice takes on a mocking edge to it as he continues. “Big man in a suit of armour, take that away and what are you?” He pauses long enough to throw another wrench (he wonders for a second when he accumulated so many wrenches) at another wall. “I am Tony Stark. Without my suit I am awesome...and rich. People seem to always forget rich.”

Tony is startled out of his musings by JARVIS' voice coming out of the speakers. “Sir, I feel that I must point out that your wealth is not the trait acquaintances usually forget. From all your social encounters it is 40% more likely that people will forget that you are in the top one percentile of intelligence. I believe your propensity for speaking without filtering the contents first is the main reason many of your peers neglect to remember this fact.”

Tony snorts, knowing there is no point in arguing with his A.I. because one: it's true, and two: JARVIS only said it to calm him down, which, surprisingly, actually works.

Tony takes a deep, cleansing breath and walks over to his suit to look it over, trying to decide what he should work on first. He settles on the left glove, because the repulsor on that side seems to drain more energy than the right. It is not life threatening, but he is always of the belief that it's best to repair something before it reaches the stage where it can actually kill him.

He has pulled apart the protective outer shell that covers the more delicate inner workings of the repulsor and is now scanning the wires, looking for a loose connection that he’s sure is causing the problem. He spots it and is about to reach for it when JARVIS addresses him again, this time with a much more serious tone of voice.

“Sir, Miss Potts has just allowed Captain Rogers entry into the Stark mansion. He is heading this way.” Tony's head snaps up in a panic and then he bolts to the farthest side of the workshop, where there are cars to hide behind and can’t be seen from the entrance. Not a second after he gets there does he hear someone typing in an access code.

“Goddamn Pepper, that traitor. Jarvis, override her code. Lock him out.” He ignores the anxiousness in his voice and waits for JARVIS to fulfil the command.

“It appears that Miss Potts has found a way to circumvent your override, sir.” Tony puts aside his panic for a moment to fully appreciate what Pepper, who couldn't set her VCR clock when he first met her, has managed to do.

“She created an override for my override? When is that woman going to stop surprising me?” Tony's awed expression drops seconds after he voices the question when he hears the door to his workshop open, and is replaced with a look of fear. He crouches down behind his vintage Mustang and silently listens as Steve Rogers practically marches into the workshop.

“Mr Stark, I know you're here. I can here you breathing.” Tony slams a hand over his mouth and curses the super soldiers enhanced senses. He stays silent, stubbornly refusing to make it that easy for the douche in red, white and blue. If Captain America wants to talk to him, then he will have to find him first.

“Don't be immature about this, Stark. We are both adults here and…hey what is—” Tony hears Rogers cut himself off with a shout of surprise and then hears nothing but the sound of a fire extinguisher being used. He smirks and stands from his hiding place, desperate to confirm what he suspects has happened.

Tony leaves his little alcove, enters the main workspace, and glances around. It doesn’t take him long to spot what he is looking for. The hunched form of Steven Rogers is pressed up against wall, with Dummy looming over him and spraying the good captain with a fire extinguisher. Tony can't help but crack up laughing at the sight.

As a master of multi-tasking, he continues to watch and laugh at his 'team-mate', while he accesses the terminal on the bench by his side. He orders the lightning bolt decals Dummy has been nagging him about for over a year. The silly, loyal bot has earned them in his book.

After he has placed the order, which only took a 30 seconds (gotta love Stark tech) Tony decides that Rogers has probably had enough and goes to tell Dummy to stop, but Mr America, who also seems to be of the belief that he has had enough, takes matters into his own hands. He has managed to grab one of the wrenches Tony had thrown earlier with one hand, while the other one continues to protect his eyes from the spray. He then swings the wrench blindly, managing to hit Dummy near his base. Dummy drops the extinguisher, makes a high pitch whining sound, and backs away quickly from Steve, who is still swinging the tool (turned weapon) in front of him.

Tony is furious. He stomps over to Steve, who has opened his eyes, since the attack has stopped and is now getting to his feet, and shoves him hard enough for the man to hit the wall behind him and drop the wrench.

“What the fuck, Rogers?! Where do you get off hitting Dummy like that? You could have injured him.” Tony shoves him again for good measure.

Steve blinks confusedly at Tony for a moment before shaking his head and settling into a glare. “It was attacking me, Stark. Besides it's just a robot. Even I know you can't hurt a robot.”

This infuriates Tony even more. His hand that is not pressing Steve into the wall curls into a fist and he is about to hit Captain America with it when something taps him hesitantly on the shoulder. He turns and all his anger drains away when he sees Dummy next to him, making pathetic clicking sounds.

Tony takes a step away from Steve and turns to give his full attention to the bot.

“What is it, boy? Are you hurt?” Dummy nods in response and makes some more clicking noises.

Tony pats Dummy's 'head' and, without even glancing at Steve, makes his way over to his main workbench. Dummy follows closely behind.

Tony opens a draw and begins rummaging around. From the corner of his eye he can see that the Captain has followed them and is now watching them from a respectable distance away. He refocuses on his search and is soon rewarded for his efforts. Tony makes a little sound of triumph. Turning to Dummy, he holds up two packets of bandages.

“Which ones? The Hello Kitty or Power Rangers?” Dummy points to the bright pink Hello Kitty box, which doesn’t surprise Tony in the least. Dummy has always been a fan of that cat (personally Tony thinks any animal with no mouth is more scary than cute).

Tony places the two boxes on the bench and takes out a Hello Kitty bandage. He crouches down in front of Dummy to take a closer look at his base. It doesn’t take him long to spot the scuffmark that the spanner left on Dummy's paintwork. He covers it with the bandage, gives the 'injured' area a gentle pat and then stands back up.

“There you go, boy. All better. Now why don't you and You go and take a nap, because I will need you both at full power a little later to move a couple of things around.” Dummy hesitates for a moment and his head swivels towards Steve's direction almost worriedly, but he eventually nods and wheels away to his recharge station. You, who had positioned himself near the panic alarm just in case things got out of control, follows suit, leaving Steve and Tony alone in the large workshop.

Tony waits a few moments to ensure that his bots are offline before turning towards Steve, who is staring at him in open astonishment mixed with puzzlement. Tony decides now is a good time to educate Captain America on a few things if the man ever wants to be in his company again.

“You listen here, Captain. Dummy is not 'just a robot' as you so rudely put it. He has an artificial intelligence. A learning bot if you will. This intelligence has led to him developing reactions to stimuli, or in laymen’s terms, feelings. You may not have physically damaged him... much, but he knows that what you did was not nice and he reacted as any sentient being would.” Steve looks abashed for a second, but then it’s gone again, disbelief taking its place

“It was attacking me for no good reason, Stark. What did you expect me to do? Just sit back and take it?” Tony rolls his eyes.

“ _He_ was just trying to protect me, knowing that I didn’t want to see you, and you were hardly in any danger from the non-toxic foam it was spraying you with. Also, I was about to call him off, but then you went all caveman on him. Let me put it this way, you hitting him with that wrench was like you kicking a barking dog for trying to protect it's master.” Steve now looks horrified, which tells Tony that his message has finally sunk in.

“Well when you put it that way, I can see why you were angry with me. If I had known that I would actually hurt it... him, I would never have swung at him. I am really sorry, Tony.” Tony is taken back from hearing Steve say 'Tony' for first time and actually stumbles to find the right words to respond.

“It isn't me you should be apologising to. You didn't hit me with a wrench.” Tony waits for Steve to argue and point out that he isn't apologising to a machine, like Rhodey and Pepper have done before, but Steve just nods in agreement and walks past Tony and towards the recharging station.

Tony spins around with wide eyes and watches Steve step up to a 'sleeping' Dummy. Rogers reaches out a hesitant hand and gently touches the bot's 'head'. Dummy's sensors pick up the contact immediately and it whirs to life. Steve whispers to it soothingly, obviously thinking that Dummy is panicking from the fast stream of noises coming from the robot.

“Hey there, boy. It's okay. I'm not here to hurt you. Just relax.” Dummy clicking and whirs slow down to a calmer pace, but Tony can tell he is still a little wary of Steve. He never thought bot could look wary, but Dummy has always managed to prove him wrong in the past, so why would now be any different.

Steve continues to pat his head as he leans in closer, so that Dummy can hear him clearly “I'm sorry I hit you, Dummy. You caught me off guard and I lashed out, which was wrong of me. I now know that you were just trying to protect Tony. He is lucky to have you.” Dummy nods at this and Tony smiles, because of course Dummy would agree with that last statement.

“Let's make a deal, Dummy. I promise to not hurt Tony, if you promise not to douse me with a fire extinguisher... or anything else. How does that sound? Maybe we could even work together in keeping Tony safe, because god knows he needs it.” Dummy nods again and then leans down to press his 'head' to Steve's open hand. Steve takes the hint and grasps Dummy's appendage in a firm grip, but lets the bot set the pace of the shake.

As the first bot he ever successfully completed shakes hands and conspires with the first person he ever masturbated over, Tony can't help but feel as though his life is about to get a whole lot more interesting.

 

Three month later, Tony wakes up on the large cot in his workshop with a very warm and naked Steve Rogers plastered against his back and Dummy wheeling towards him with a fresh mug of coffee. His face breaks out into a smile as he changes his assessment of his life from interesting to fucking perfect.


End file.
